The Reason We Came Back

There is a little bit of a change from the last life update. Last time I said I was going to be “intern pastor.” Kailua Baptist Church (KBC) is still technically calling me that, but that position required the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention Executive Board to approve it since they would provide a portion of the salary. Well, for a number of reasons, it was not approved by the Executive Board. But the man I intended to meet with for supervision still wants to meet with me, and KBC simply voted to pay the portion that the convention was supposed to. There are at least three encouraging outcomes from all of this:

The church is not shaken. They were discouraged but their view of me has not changed at all and they still have me as their top candidate for the permanent position.

This has caused several people in the church to resolve to keep striving for holiness, and to even think through past conflicts with individuals in the convention. They want to be sure that they have done everything they can to make things right with people.

No one at KBC knows exactly why the convention voted against the internship. And this certainly has not helped KBC’s view of the convention. But it reveals that somewhere along the line someone or some people– who have a lot of influence among the churches on this island– have thought unbiblically about our situation. And this is the reason we came back to Hawaii in the first place– to help people think more biblically. Praise God!